After the trillion-sounding notes of this jamboree of a summer, nothing could be more welcome than 4m 33s of total silence. John Cage’s golden piece, 4’33, was performed in a version for silent ensemble by the London Sinfonietta, painstakingly directed by André de Ridder, at the end of a particularly engaging late-night Prom.

The programme had begun with three tiered rows of the platform occupied by some 70 or so ticking metronomes, all doing their own thing. This was György Ligeti’s Poème symphonique, and it took 10 minutes at least for the inanimate ensemble to wind down, deliciously asymmetrically, leaving one forlorn voice whose own melancholy heartbeat finally expired.